Welcome to Hemlock Falls

[Marcos Medeiros]

"Maybe," Marcos whispers back, returning the wink. "Do many hikers come through here? We thought it might be a good idea to touch base with some, but we haven't seen any on our way up."

After a moment or two, Marcos sets down his menu. "I'll have the fried chicken and rib combo. With onion rings, please."

Something deep, deep inside of him tells him that he'll regret ordering that, but he pays it no mind. His guts will probably be in full revolt within a matter of hours no matter what he orders. Why not go all out?

 

[Atrus]

"Not many, actually. You're the first I've seen in a while. People only arrive here at the Falls when they venture off the trail, which not very many do. Or when they get lost." He doesn't say which one he thought applied to the group, but simply takes down Marcos' order with a nod. "Whatcha want to wash it down with?"

 

[The Dullahan]

Rourke would wait patiently before putting in his order, the hemlock falls burger, and then turned to look at the rest of the establishment and who else might be lingering after the lunch rush (especially since it seemed like Marcos was chatting up the bartender).

 

[Molly Dufrene]

Molly also patiently waits until she gets a chance to order as well, tentatively getting a spicy chicken sandwich with fries. She mostly turns her attention to her map of the area, reviewing it again for any places that might be a good idea to check out while the group is here.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah's choice proves to be a burger, but rather than the normal potato-fries she opts for a cob of local corn. To drink, she sticks to non-alcoholic stuff. She also takes the opportunity for a quick biobreak.

 

[Atrus]

((Sorry everyone, new reply coming soon))

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

"We're only a little bit lost," Marcos says with a roguish grin. "We'll find our way back." A pause, a nod to his companions. "Well, they will. I just follow along and sing campfire songs sometimes." After a moment or two of glancing around the bar, hoping fruitlessly that another group will walk in, Marcos turns his attention back to the bartender. "It must be quiet around here most days then, no?"

Marcos peers over the bartender's shoulder at the bottles lining the shelves, then thankfully decides that he shouldn't tempt his Bee to call it quits. If his meal doesn't first, that is. "I'll just have some iced tea."

 

[Atrus]

"Most of the day, yeah. But that's good. It gets lively at night, so I get my quiet while the sun is up." The bartender smirked at Marcos' iced tea, then wrote down the rest of the orders on the same slip of paper and slipped it to someone in the kitchen.

The rest of the group put a few tables together for everyone to sit nearby while waiting for the food to cook. A first round of drinks were had, alcoholic or not depending on the preference, before the burgers and sandwiches made it to the table. Whether out of nostalgia or tradition or as a distinctive trait for the bar, all their dishes came in mismatched ceramic plates that wouldn't have looked out of place in some grandma's home.

Molly was reviewing her map as she took her first bite. The spots that looked most interesting were the waterfalls, the old mine, and the sawmill. There was, of course, also the old house they had spotted from the trail.
Maybe it was because she was distracted that it took her a second to notice that there was something hard in the inside of her sandwich. In this day and age it was rare to find chicken that hadn't been previously ground into a paste, but maybe around here they still did it with the real thing, and a piece of bone had stuck to the meat.

Molly made to pull the offending bit out of her mouth. It was not a chicken bone. It was a tooth. A human tooth.
She raised her eyes, looked at the others. No one else seemed to have noticed anything strange.

Above the shock of her surprise, she could also hear a faint tinkling sound, as if of very little chimes. Or ceramic hitting ceramic. Like teeth of all sorts, white, yellow, holed, broken, falling out of her sandwich and hitting her plate, jumping around, falling off the table.

 

[Molly Dufrene]

For a minute, Molly considered the possibility that this was all a dream, or nightmare. But her nightmares were always of a more personal nature, and she had the distinct feeling that she was awake. So, with the sight of jumping human teeth coming out of her sandwich, she employed her time honored survival technique of abruptly jumping to her feet and dashing away, knocking over the chair in the process. At least she had learned in her time on Solomon Island to avoid screaming from the things the sound kept attracting. She's actually fairly quick as she bolts out the door to the outside. Once outside she would slow down eventually, her panic actually causing a shortness of breath.

One, two, three... She continued to mentally count in a effort to calm down and breathe, shaking the entire time.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah looks up when Molly jumps up and bolts outside, and so is looking towards the door, not Molly's plate or sandwich. She sets her own fork down, and gets up. Hesitates, then asks "Do you think she's okay?"

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

Marcos never wondered how iced tea would taste on fried chicken and barbecue ribs, but he's about to find out. As it turns out, Molly is not the only practioner of the time-honored survival technique of getting the fuck away. And as Marcos jumps out of his chair, so too does his drink escape the bounds of its glass.

It isn't long before a string of curse words (thankfully in Portuguese) escape the bounds of the young Pheonician's mouth.

Marcos settles back down in his chair as soon as he realizes that there's... absolutely nothing to be scared of. He'd never admit that Molly's abrupt departure is what nearly prompted his own. Never.

As he sets about mopping up the mess that he made with the few napkins provided, Marcos glances at Molly's not even half-finished sandwich, to the door that she ran out of, and then to his group. Sarah, in particular.

"I don't think so," Marcos says bluntly. He glances at the sandwich again and carefully prods at it with a fork, expecting maybe to find a bug or something of the sort, but coming away empty-handed. And ever the more confused. "Hm. We should check on her."

 

[Atrus]

The bartender gazed silently at the scene, then gave a sharp nod of the head at the waitress, who quickly came to the table armed with a tray and few extra rags to help clean up the mess.
"Is everything OK with your friend?" ther woman asked, concerned. Looking at the waterlogged mess of Marcos' dish, she exchanges another silent conversation with the owner before adding. "Let me fix this up for you. On the house."

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah nods to Marcos, and gets up. She says to the waitress "We should be right back, we just need to make sure she's okay." She looks at Marcos for a moment, before moving towards the door.

She doesn't say anything else, but anyone looking at her expression can see two things. One: 'Weeeiiiirrrddd'. The other is simple concern for a fellow person.

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

"I think so, but we're going out to check on her just in case," Marcos says, nodding to Sarah before smiling gratefully at the waitress. She makes much quicker work of the mess with her rags than he can ever hope to with those flimsy paper napkins. "Thanks for the help. And give my thanks to whoever's giving me more food." The smile widens into a roguish grin.

Once the waitress leaves the table, Marcos strolls outside to meet Sarah. And hopefully Molly. He glances at Sarah, eyebrows raised in an expression which almost perfectly mirrors the 'Weeeeeeird.' But he doesn't make any comment. There's no telling if she's just a civilian swept up in... whatever's going on around here, after all.

So, he turns to Molly, instead. He stays a good arm's length away, so as not to crowd her and/or send her running again.

"That must have been some scary spider," Marcos says, hoping to lighten the mood. "Are you okay?"

 

[Molly Dufrene]

Still breathing heavily, she wheezes out "I... Panic... Attack."

From the way they are acting, seeminly like everything inside was alright, she begans to doubt what she saw. She glances down at the hand that should be holding a tooth, until now forgotten in her mad dash outside.

 

[Atrus]

Molly's hand was empty. Except...
There was a small groove in her palm, and two small points, next to each other, where her skin had reddened. As if she had held onto something small and with pointy ends, but it was now gone.

 

[Molly Dufrene]

Molly is calmed a bit by the physical evidence. It proves that it's not just her mind playing tricks on her, a fear she often has. The moment passes though, and she now realizes that she is standing in front of two people who just saw her cause a massive scene. And that there are more people who saw it too. Massively embarrased at this point, she just kinda stands awkwardly silent.

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

Marcos, for one, is relieved that whatever Molly saw in her hand calmed her down, because he has absolutely idea what to do with panic attacks and people having panic attacks. He probably fell asleep during that part of pirate boot camp.

"Ready to go back inside?" Marcos says, offering a friendly smile. "We can just say that a mouse ran over your feet. Or that a spider dropped on you. The others will understand."

He finds himself half-wishing that Sarah would rejoin the others, now that the situation is more or less under control. He knows that whatever spooked Molly was no creepy crawly. She'd been staring at her sandwich, after all, and no truck-stop food — no matter how greasy and stale and downright awful — can be that horrifying.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah looks at Molly and Marcos, and asks Molly "Are you okay now?"

 

[The Dullahan]

Rourke had taken the small calm to go to the restroom before his food arrived. When he returned their table the wait staff was giving him strange looks. He paused, and smiled faintly, and then sat down with what remained of the group. He paused and then looked at the three at the table, "So...uh...what happened?"